_2x.png)
Baby Bird: From Integration to Orbit-Ready
Our first optical beacon has been integrated, shaken, cycled through vacuum, and sealed into its dispenser. Here's what we learned along the way.
When we last wrote, our optical beacon was on a bench, talking to an emulator of the satellite it would eventually ride on. Since then it has been installed in that satellite, shaken to launch loads, cycled hot and cold in vacuum, and sealed inside its dispenser. The next time it moves, it will be on a rocket.
As a reminder, Manifest Space is building onboard space traffic awareness for every spacecraft, starting with an optical beacon that lets a satellite announce its identity and position from the moment it deploys. This summer was about proving that beacon could survive the trip. Here's how it went.
PAYLOAD DELIVERY AND SOFTWARE CHECKOUT: NASHVILLE, TN
In the last week of July 2026, Manifest Space delivered our optical beacon payload to Blackwing Space, and together we began final integration and testing of Baby Bird, the 1.5U CubeSat. Working out of the SEOPS clean room facility in Nashville, TN, the combined team conducted a full software checkout with the flight payload installed inside the satellite and interfaced to the CubeSat's flight computer. That checkout was exhaustive. We commanded the LED arrays on and confirmed they responded correctly to uplinked commands, and we closed the loop end-to-end over the radio link: receiving GPS data, repackaging it, and transmitting it back through our software-defined radio. Everything passed. The integrated satellite and payload were then packed for transport to vibration testing.
FLIGHT ACCEPTANCE VIBRATION TESTING: MARIETTA, GA
At the ATS test facility in Marietta, GA, we integrated the satellite into a dispenser emulator and completed fit checks. Following a pre-vibe functional test, we vibration-tested the full stack (dispenser, satellite, and payload) in all three axes to the dynamic environment expected during launch. A post-vibe functional test confirmed the hardware came through intact. This was our flight acceptance testing, and we passed, demonstrating the payload's ability to survive launch loads.
One risk in particular got retired here: the wire harness connectors linking the payload to the LED boards on the satellite's exterior panels. We used Harwin Gecko connectors, seated and retained by a compliant metal clip, with epoxy as a secondary locking mechanism. The successful vibe campaign put to rest the concern that we could lose connection to the LED boards after launch and dispense, the single-point failure that would have taken the beacon with it.
THERMAL VACUUM TESTING: MELBOURNE, FL
From there the team moved to the Element test facility in Melbourne, FL, where the beacon completed thermal-vacuum testing integrated into the Baby Bird platform: two full hot-cold cycles in vacuum, spanning average structural temperatures from -19°C to +48°C, with beacon internals swinging from -39°C to +74°C. The beacon performed nominally at every commanded test point: ping and status checks, and both red and green blink sequences across all faces, with total blink counts correct and zero LED over-temperature flags raised for the entire campaign. That last detail matters more than it sounds. It means our thermal design has real margin exactly where our optical link is most vulnerable.
Just as valuable, the test told us something we could only learn by testing the beacon and the platform together. The Baby Bird batteries, not our payload, set the thermal envelope, reaching their 60°C limit before the structure did. So the range we validated is the range we will actually see on orbit, which is precisely the kind of risk you want retired before launch rather than discovered after.
We also found and closed a real issue: a platform watchdog that occasionally cut payload power after a 10-second unresponsiveness window. Extending the grace period to 30 seconds eliminated it for the remainder of testing, and in every instance the payload recovered cleanly on power-up. One item stays open by design. Because the sealed chamber prevented rotating the unit, we will verify IMU rotation rates in a dedicated test before deployment integration.
After thermal vacuum testing, the beacon is flight-ready at TRL 7. Our assumptions are now measurements, and the mission's remaining unknowns are a far shorter list than they were a month ago.
FINAL INTEGRATION: SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA
On August 19, the team completed final integration of the satellite into the SEOPS dispenser at Maverick Space Systems in San Luis Obispo. Before closing out the dispenser, we ran one more functional checkout, covering LED blink verification, IMU responsiveness, and the flight software update to the watchdog timing. With the stack sealed, attention shifted immediately to operations.
BUILDING THE OBSERVATION CAMPAIGN
We are now working with Blackwing Space and our observation partners to plan the campaign. Manifest Space has also built its own optical ground capability with the help of our excellent intern, Toby Funk. We assembled a 20 cm aperture telescope and verified tracking performance to better than 0.5° of error in both azimuth and elevation, comfortably inside the field of view our camera needs to resolve the LEDs from the ground. We wrote custom software that automatically pulls spacecraft ephemeris from Blackwing Space, generates tracking commands, and drives telescope actuation through the observation pass, calibrating against known star fields along the way. We have already demonstrated the full tracking chain by observing Starlink satellites. A partner's optical ground station network serves as our primary observation method, with our own telescope as a redundant option.
In parallel, we are working with a space situational awareness data and alert platform to engage SpaceX on using its Stargaze capability to observe our beacon from orbit. Closing both ground-based and space-based observation of the beacon would be the holy grail of this mission. It would validate our optical beacon on orbit as a tool for space situational awareness, space traffic management, and navigation aid for rendezvous and proximity operations in support of ISAM missions.
MEANWHILE, ON THE TRANSPONDER
While the Baby Bird integration and test campaign was underway, the Manifest Space team worked with The Rad Team to complete the preliminary design review of our multi-band RF transponder. We closed the loop with a major satellite operator on requirements for C-band space-to-space relay communication using their relay satellites. We designed the architecture to be modular, allowing a battery module to be added so the radio can operate power-independent of the host.
WHAT COMES NEXT
Baby Bird is now waiting on SpaceX's Transporter-18, scheduled for no earlier than October 2026. Everything this summer was about getting to this point with as few surprises left as possible. The next update should come from orbit, and the job then is the one this whole campaign was built for: finding the beacon, and proving a satellite can announce who it is and where it is from day one.
Share this blog post
